Although born in Argentina, Lynette Roberts considered herself a Welsh poet. She married a Welshman, Keidrych Rhys, and spent her entire poetic career (between the late 1930s and early 1950s) in South Wales — first in Llanybri and then, when the marriage failed, in Laugharne. She died in 1995, and is buried in Llanybri.

As most of her writing took place during the first half of the 1940s, Roberts can also be thought of as a war poet. Some of her work has a merely incidental link to the war — “Poem from Llanybri” was written to fellow poet Alun Lewis while he was on active service, and it is hard to read its invitational words without a feeling of regret knowing that he died without being able to take her up on them.

If you come my way that is…
Between now and then, I will offer you
A fist full of rock cress fresh from the bank
The valley tips of garlic red with dew
Cooler than shallots, a breath you can swank

In the village when you come. At noonday
I will offer you a choice bowl of cawl
Served with a ‘lover’s’ spoon and a chopped spray
Of leeks or savori fach, not used now,

In the old way you’ll understand. [...]

A sit by the hearth with blue flames rising,
No talk. Just a stare at ‘Time’ gathering
Healed thoughts, pool insight, like swan sailing
Peace and sound around the home, offering

You a night’s rest and my day’s energy.
You must come — start this pilgrimage
Can you come? — send an ode or an elegy
In the old way and raise our heritage.

There are more obvious reminders of the war in these poems. One of the most striking is “Earthbound”, in which Roberts is able to celebrate the beginning of acceptance into the village community, but only through the most awful of circumstances — the death of a local soldier. On this Remembrance Day, it still resonates with sadness.

I, in my dressing gown,
At the dressing table with mirror in hand
Suggest my lips with accustomed air, see
The reflected van like lipstick enter the village
When Laura came, and asked me if I knew.

We had known him a little, yet long enough:
Drinking in all rooms, mild and bitter,
Laughing and careless under the washing-line tree.

[...]

We walked the greaving room alone,
Saw him lying in his upholstered box,
Violet ribbon carefully crossed,
And about his sides bunches of wild thyme.
No one stirred as we offered the gift. No one drank there again.

In the simplicity of her description, Roberts evokes the hardness of the village life: “The day so icy when we gathered the moss…” and “We made the wreath standing on the white floor…” There is no affectation in this, nor in the care taken to create a respectful memorial: “Pinning each leaf smooth, / Polishing the outer edge with the warmth of our hands.”

Unlike many poems of remembrance, “Earthbound” is, as its title suggests, rooted in the land to which the dead soldier will shortly return. It also fixes the act of remembrance in the community from which he came. For those reasons I find it more painful than poems such as “In Flanders Fields” or “The Soldier“. It is also more timeless. It is as meaningful in modern Wootton Bassett as it was in nearly 70 years ago in rural Wales.